The top name on the list is a bit of a surprise: Eric Holder. Certainly, Holder is less than beloved here at Techdirt. (Here's a few dozen reasons why.) But to date, we've never really found him to be some sort of Bob Guccione Jr., wandering the Dept. of Justice spreading the Good News about porn.

Here's why Holder is public enemy no. 1, according to Morality in Media.

Mr. Holder refuses to enforce existing federal obscenity laws against hardcore adult pornography, despite the fact that these laws have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and effectively enforced by previous attorneys general.

Hmm. Maybe it's because he's got bigger fish to fry, what with Kim Dotcom still wandering around New Zealand shooting his mouth off (and opening new storage lockers), domestic spying and possible domestic drone attacks to keep under his hat, FOIA requests to ignore and the prosecution of Aaron Swartz to answer for.

Federal obscenity laws are randomly enforced. Previous attorneys general may have made an effort if enough noise surrounded the case, but by and large, porn continues unabated.

Here are the other 11 of the "Dirty Dozen:"

Comcast

Comcast gets named out front, but the dropdown text names every major cable/DSL provider, each of which provides premium and PPV porn.

The world’s most popular social networking site has become a top place to trade pornography, which we have reported on numerous occasions. According to reports, even child pornography is regularly shared on Facebook and women and children are trafficked on the site.

Oh, never mind. It's completely laughable. It's like Craiglist, only with a UI that won't make your eyes bleed! (Oddly enough, Human Traffic Central does not make the list.)

Porn pushers as well, apparently. Hooked up with SkyLodgeNet and timing its porn ads so they're the first thing you see when you turn it on... at least according to MiM's research.

Twitter

Twitter doesn't police tweets containing external links, so the service may as well just be the hype man outside an adult bookstore, pressing Tweets into the hands of every passerby.

Twitter has become the new ‘micro-porn’ service with tens of thousands of porn tweets an hour. Of course, there is no way to keep this from children.

Of course. Children are unregulated entities who raise themselves by foraging for food and following porn-y Twitter feeds. If only they had parents...

American Library Association

Oh, look. Big Lend is hooking your innocent little children up to porn IVs disguised as publicly accessible computers. And when it's not doing it directly, it's allowing your children to peek over the shoulder of that skeevy-looking dude browsing porn in public. For shame. If only the ALA would shut up about this "First Amendment" and keep its computers locked up tighter than an AOL portal with NetNanny running over the top.

Wikipedia

Useful tool or PORN LOCKER? You be the judge. (Or don't. It looks as though MiM has that position locked up...) Because Wikipedia won't proactively monitor content uploaded to Wikicommons, it is now awash in all kinds of pornography, ranging from the merely titillating to the hideously obscene to the kiddie. (Again, according to the "researchers" at Morality Central.)

This publication has steadily declined from a somewhat inspirational women’s magazine to a verbally pornographic “how-to” sex guide, further desensitizing young women and girls to the pornified culture around them.

One thing's for sure: "pornified" is a way underused term. (Also: porntacular, pornstravaganza, porned up, pornundated.)

Barnes & Noble

Well, good thing it's on its way out, then. MiM found nearly "two dozen" porn mags for sale at one store it randomly checked. (Give it another month or two, MiM! You may not be able to find the store at all! Smooches, Amazon.)

Dept. of Defense

O. M. G.

Servicemen "read" porn.

MiM says the DoD has a "porn problem" and acts like this is a new thing, instead of something that's been going for as long as young, warm-blooded males have been sent miles away from their loved ones for months at a time, often while being shot at frequently. Of course they had porn. And still do. Next, MiM will be adding the federal prison system to this list and acting shocked that incarcerated males would be in possession of pornography.

Morality in Media wants your help to "target, expose and shame" entities like the American Library Association, the Department of Defense and, um, Cosmo. It even gives you a pre-written petition to sign and, oddly enough, the opportunity to share this on Face[porn]book. But this whole list reeks of extrapolation and desperation, as if actual pornographers were nowhere to be found. Instead, we are given the opportunity to approach porn at an oblique angle and shame entities and services that have plenty of positive aspects. (Not included: Eric Holder, LodgeNet.) It takes a special sort of mindset to look at libraries and Wikipedia and see nothing but gaping pornholes.

They forgot a few...

Just to be helpful for their next list of companies to target:
Actual Porn producers: maybe, just maybe?
Bad Parents, because we've been told Daddy issues leads to the dark side of the sheets?
Google, cause how else would you find the porn that meets your interests?
Bing, cause how else would you find the porn that doesn't meet your interests?
Yahoo, cause their next move will be to get into porn?
and finally: Avenue Q: because without that song, how would anyone even know that the Internet had porn?

Re:

That's precisely what I thought. Porn is not a problem. And the "for the children" mantra is getting a little tired. Good parents won't let their children surf unattended. And in the event they accidentally get in touch with porn said parents will be perfectly fine in explaining what it is and work around the situation.

I had contact with a Playboy when I was 10 and got interested. When I asked mom she told me it's natural for men to be interested in women (I already knew how babies were made because my parents are that awesome). I asked if she could buy me one and she did. I'm not a sexual obsessed man and I treat my partner with a lot of love.

Re:

Re:

Most porn does not depict "natural bodies", and what takes place in it are not even close to "natural acts". Anyone who has actually had sex can tell you this.

My kids (all under the age of 14) know about sex. They know that their parents have sex. They've seen pictures of childbirth. I let them watch The Big Bang Theory, where it's mentioned and even implied all the time. They've been to art galleries regularly since they were 2, where there's plenty of nudity.

I don't have a problem with sex and nudity. "The problem with porn" is that it's not sex. It's not that it's too explicit, it's that it's not nearly explicit enough. It invariably contains no emotion, nothing about relationships, nothing about negotiation... it leaves out everything that's good about sex beyond the purely mechanical. Everything is that you see is done for the benefit of the camera, not for the benefit of the people having sex.

(And that's leaving aside the the fact that it compounds existing dysfunctions in our society like body image dysmorphia.)

There's a lot of emerging evidence that young adults who watched a lot of porn have problems with intimate relationships. It makes intuitive sense when you think about it, like how exclusively using Visual Basic teaches you bad programming habits, or eating a diet of junk food gives you bad dietary habits and can even permanently affect your physiology.

That there exists "good" porn is beside the point. The vast majority of it is bad for a developing brain. Kids would be far better off with trashy erotic romance novels than they would be with porn, because at least they contain some actual emotional content.

out of curiosity, i wonder how much porn these idiots watched to come (no pun intended!) to the conclusions reached in the article. must have been a hell of a lot, otherwise they would never have achieved the stats stated!

Re:

"Hey big lend, bro! You got some of the good stuff? Just need to, you know, get a little high and such!"

Moral control is always gonna give a lot of problems. When it comes to porn, violence in video games and other phenomena where the internet is a provider, you are gonna make DEA an exemplary success in comparison!

Not sure about in the U.S., but the worst offenders for me here are the stores in the mall, especially the underwear stores.. If people dress like that in public around kids, they get arrested, but it's ok to put up 20 foot billboards of people dressed like that?

I don't actually *mind*, I'm not particularly picky about children being exposed to sexual content, but I just always thought it was a complete double standard.

Also, theres porn on wikipedia? Why aren't there any actual porn suppliers on their list?

Re: Re: Re:

Re:

Most porn viewable on Wikipedia comes from Wikimedia Commons (like most other images there). They're two separate projects with two separate communities (though on the same host and run with the same software). Wikipedia's community is not responsible for stuff on Commons and vice versa (the host is legally responsible for both though).

People looking for porn

Speaking as someone who was oversees being shot at (sort of)

MiM can bite me. I was over there defending our country and *this* is their contribution? Put up or shut up, Morality in Media. How many of you have fought for our country or signed up for other full-time public service? If your contribution to this world is to sit back and sling road apples at other people perhaps it is time to take a long hard look at yourselves.

Hmph..

Credit where credit is due

I for one would like to thank Morality in Media for assembling a list of new and exciting ways for me to find porn. Thank you, Morality in Media, for making life easier for porn swilling depraved cave dwellers everywhere.

Re: Define Porn

It's impossible to define porn in a non-subjective way without excluding a lot of stuff that obviously isn't porn. But my stab at it -- porn is anything that you are looking at/reading/listening to because it gets you hot. Whether or not the producers of it intended for it to be arousing.

Re: Re:

And we get to the problem that the Church has. I think that intimate acts should be kept intimate, but manufacturing outrage is just stupid. The only one on that list that even deserves to be shamed is Cosmo, but that's more for sending a horrible message (You must be good at sex to have a boyfriend or even a stable relationship) than being pornographic.

I grew up a baptist, and I am a Christian, but please, hear me out before you pass judgement. I could say that we believe porn is harmful because God said so, but I know that's going to fly around here about as well as a lead balloon, so I'll lay out why I think it is so.

Sex is supposed to be the ultimate expression of love between a couple. Pornography cheapens that expression by turning it into a commodity. It takes something intimate and private and shows it too the world. It can also damage relationships between spouses and couples. It can make your lover feel as if they aren't good enough. It inspires feelings of lust, you know that feeling you get when you look a someone and think, "Dang, I'd like to see them naked in my bed." It can lead to jealousy and other sorts of emotions that have the nasty habit of disintegrating relationships in a fashion similar to a jet engine ripping itself apart.

Simply put, it's not sex, or even porn, but the problems in relationships that if can cause that's the issue. If you have a marriage that lasts 50+ years while you or your spouse watch the lastest Co-ed Cheerleaders of Lusty Lake. More power to you.

Re:

Simply put, it's not sex, or even porn, but the problems in relationships that if can cause that's the issue.

I would argue that it's wrong to blame porn for this. Every relationship has boundaries and limits that are unique to that relationship. Porn may be over the line for some, but not others. That's not a fault of porn (it's not a fault at all).

Look at it another way -- the leading cause of divorce in the US is money problems. Would you say that money itself is the problem? I would say the problem is actually in the relationship to begin with.

Re: Re: Money or the relationship, porn or the relationship

There are many people who have never grown up. They are more concerned with their own personal pleasure than looking outside of themselves. This is what will cause the relationships to fail.

Having any relationship requires hard work on the part of both people. This is particularly so in marriage. It always requires that both treat the relationship as 100% effort on the part of each person. If you don't then there are consequences.

The salient point, I think in AWarnock's post are:-

1). Pornography cheapens that expression by turning it into a commodity
2). It can make your lover feel as if they aren't good enough.

Do either of these enough and the relationship is doomed. Being associated with ministry (though not a pastor myself), I have seen too many problems arise when either spouse looks outside.

What we have missing today, is the concept of building relationships for the long term. We instead have the general concept of "What's in it for me?"

Re: Re: Re: Money or the relationship, porn or the relationship

1). Pornography cheapens that expression by turning it into a commodity

It can for some people. But it isn't a universal truth. For a lot of people, porn doesn't cheapen anything at all.

2). It can make your lover feel as if they aren't good enough.

It can for some people. For a lot of people, though, it doesn't have this effect at all.

Porn can be bad for some people and some relationships. The same thing is true of literally every non-porn thing you can think of.

What you say about giving 100% to a relationship is totally true. If porn makes my partner feel disaffected or bad about herself, then to continue to use porn is pretty much the opposite of giving 100%. But the problem isn't the porn. It's me.

Re: Re: Strengthen the relationship

Your comment is strangely funny, as porn is quite often the leak that undermines the wall. So to strengthen the relationship get rid of the leak.

Some very old quotes:

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

This is how one should be looking upon their spouse. Things that interfere with this are to be put aside.

"About this censorial instinct: we basically know already what we need to know, and we’ve known it for a long time, it comes from an old story from (...) a great Englishman (...) Dr. Samuel Johnson, the author of the first great dictionary of English language. When it was complete he was waited upon by various delegations of people to congratulate him, (...) also by a delegation of respectable ladies of London (...). "Dr Johnson" they said: “we are delighted to find that you’ve not included any indecent or obscene words in your dictionary.”

“Ladies, said Dr. Johnson, “I can congratulate you on being able to look them up.”

Hmm I was unaware that stuff done and watched by consenting adults was causing suffering, which is necessarily the basis for a rational view of morality. But then again, fundies aren't rational,so there ya go.

IT's like I've always aid: for as much as republicans rail angainst bloomturd and his nanny state agenda they themselves are no better, it's the difference between the viewpoints of two nannies, not a nanny and one who treats you as an adult capable of making your own choices

Enforcement on porn is like enforcement on copyright. How much enforcement depends on who is in charge.

The same thing would have happened if SOPA/PIPA has passed. Enforcement would have pretty much depended on who was running things at the time. One Administration could have decided they were going to enforce it, while the next Administration could decide they are not.

Romney or Santorum would have, for example, strictly enforced porn laws, but all but shut down copyright enforcement.

When it comes to copyright, Klobuchar's Commercial Felony Streaming Act would have had the same spotty enforcement. One Administration would have decided to enforce it, while the next Administration would have decided not to.

This is why obscenity laws are bad for the country, and laws like SOPA/PIPA would have been, becuase there is no way to know what the next Administration is going to do.

Porn is a natural outcropping of the artificial scarcity of nudity. If we were more comfortable with ourselves (naked or otherwise) it would not be a problem. Nor would sexy TV commercials be so distracting and effective in a bad/manipulative kind of way. (Just have to buy that SUV that the hot babes/guys like!)

Obviously Morality in Media is a special interest group based on puritanical religious viewpoints. Do they do their staff recruiting at some Wesburrough FL church as this report would do them proud. This apparent campaign to put more fear into society seems vapid.

Since this list mentions the library, bookstore and even Wikipedia? Its strains the mind to grasp the ridiculous tragic comedy being presented. Any communist regime would love to hijack this kind of misguided effort for their own control desires. (Political convenience.)

Its normal that extreme religious groups want to shut down society itself and force their pious viewpoints on entire nations and it has been done before. Example; The Crusades that plagued Europe for hundreds of years during the aptly named Dark Age where innovation was zero and tyrants ruled with murder and war.

What is truly tragic is that another special interest group has been hijacked by extremists with no respect for the constitution and its Bill of Rights. Morality in Media cannot be taken seriously at this level.

Here is an excerpt from one of my earlier posts (Darn cant find the link... Write to much?) You'd think all this is obvious but it escapes the average Joe. Its right to the point/topic.

Quote;

“How does one become aware. Aware of what? The world? Society and groups with specific shared meems? (both good and bad) How do we all fit withing all that? (this is a ten+ page essay would anyone sit through all that? Edited version follows.) Everyone goes through a coming of age moment several times in a life. Best to provide them as soon as possible. Its a crime that kids grow up and similarly that parents want to preserve childhood forever.

Keeping in mind that once a question is asked by a child full disclosure is needed to whatever extent you measure or are able to describe without... fear. 100% honesty complete with your embarrassment is needed at this point or your kids might start to ignore you. (are you holding back?)

How does one explain the facts of life without dirty nude pictures in a playboy/girl magazine, bloody war photos of goo and spatter (that are censored and hard to find thus giving an artificial glamorous view of war without the vivid reality of horrible gore), evil serial crime without disgusting stories of murder with photos like the insanity of John W. Gacy, government corruption without pictures and stories of killing just because of experiments/profit, … life is real and horrible unless one makes the effort to become a good person amid all the trash and terror of life.

How do we explain such real life showing the wonderful explosion of cultural greatness shown by Einstein, Martin Luther King, Harold Washington (1st black mayor of Chicago IL), Thomas Jefferson, etc. So many great people and things in life to have fun with.

There are some things each of us should fear with all of our hearts and intelligence; War, rape, violent crime, serial murders, dictatorship, monopolies, copyright, performance and trademark law (hahahah), insanity and worse things like the erosion of democratic culture. (not a joke)

Parents should introduce these topics as they seem able. Each subject is as sensitive as the feared 'facts of life' talk but also as important when introducing the concept of human nature in it greatness/terribleness.

On the Internet and in real life (pointless to force either issue) kids will obtain porno or whatever they want physically ( a playboy or girl magazine) or virtually (on-line) every time. Evey time. The question is... will you as a parent be there at that time to guide your kids along way you believe are good? If you leave it to chance what will your kids actually obtain? An S&M magazine? (From the neighbors garbage.)

Do you believe that you should prevent and prohibit your family from knowledge about sex, war, human nature (good and bad) or whatever? Lets phrase this another way; do you want to see you kids intimidated at school repeatedly about such silly stupid subjects that you should inform them of as soon as they even attempt to question you about them? (Sex, marriage, where babies come from, cuss words, how to defend themselves physically and verbally, whats the difference between saying “thats a lie” and “you are lying”?)

What happens to the child who has no idea what sex is once they reach the age of 18? what happens to anyone without some worldly knowledge? Yes. They, most likely, get taken advantage of... Sad tale. Bad ending. Damaged psyche. PTSD.”

Unquote.

Get real. Mostly what we are to embarrassed to admit to our kids is our own inability to say “we don't know”. We suffer from our own social inadequacy. (no pun)

Being able to have a long term relationship be it friendship or closer is a vital social skill that cannot be forced. Both individuals and couples must know/learn how to survive the daily bombardment of experiencing the joy and terror of life. Its important for a stable society. The type or style of any relationship is up to the couple.

So if censoring real life will always lead to tragedy... Topless babes on the beach. Yes. Shared hot spring baths? Sure. Streaking in public? Of course. Nude beaches? Why not. Hot magazined in the bathroom? Maybe so. Secret stash of porno? Who cares!

Side note; there are a lot of evils perpetrated in the porn industry (of which Prendaa is possibly a part/symptom of its exploitation?) which are separate issues to the puritanical viewpoint that this essay is critical of.

Hiding behind closed doors for normal human activity produces the same perverted ways akin to politicians fornicating bad law in secret meetings. Both are evil for open, free society.